Author Archive

Much excitement has been created in the neighborhood of Lebanon, Oregon, recently over the discovery of a wild man in the mountains above that place, who is supposed to be the long lost John Mackentire. About four years ago Mackentire, of Lebanon, while out hunting in the mountains east of Albany with another man, mysteriously disappeared and no definite trace of him has ever yet been found.

Wood Knocks Volume One: Journal of Sasquatch Research is, as the title suggests, the first in an ongoing series of books on the Bigfoot controversy. Published by David Weatherly’s Leprechaun Press, and with excellent cover artwork from Sam Shearon, the book is a collection of papers on a wide variety of Bigfoot-themed issues.

Bigfoot: it’s a controversy-filled word that is instantly recognizable to just about one and all. And, regardless of whether one is a true believer, an open-minded skeptic, a definitive non-believer, or a semi-interested observer of the controversy, pretty much everyone knows what the word implies and describes: a large, hair-covered, ape-style animal that is said to roam, and lurk within, the mysterious, forested wilds of the United States.

Any mention of supernatural phenomena, in connection with old British castles, is inevitably going to provoke imagery of ghosts, specters, and the dead returned (chain-rattling or not). This is hardly surprising, since Britain is seemingly filled with such stories and legends. Less well know, however, are the cases that link old castles not to human ghosts but to the ghosts of strange creatures. As in very strange creatures.

As anyone who has followed my writing will know, I have, over the years, collected a huge number of reports of Bigfoot-like creatures in the U.K. As well as cases involving out-of-place apes and monkeys, and downright anomalous primates of the hairy kind. Of course, to be on the receiving end of such reports in somewhere the size of the U.K. is way more controversial than collecting reports originating in the vast forests of the United States.

Is it feasible that the subtropical rainforests of Australia are home to gigantic, marauding lizards of twenty to thirty feet in length? Could such Jurassic Park-like beasts really remain hidden, undetected, and free to rampage around in near-unstoppable fashion? Just maybe, the answer is “yes.”

Is it possible that Hollywood’s Creature from the Black Lagoon has a real-life counterpart? Or, maybe, not exactly a counterpart, but something that is broadly similar? Just possibly, yes – as amazing as it might sound.